Humanity first--Science second

Re: Humanity first--Science second


It's funny that you mention "liberation," because the scientific method is what compels us to accept claims as true pending falsification rather than accepting them as true by decree. Is there a better way to resist dogma (i.e. the advancing of certain "creative liberties" over others)? I can't think of one, but I'm open to ideas.

Shapless

The scientific method is very useful for determining matters of fact but it is virtually useless for determining matters of subjective morality. The problem I am trying to illuminate is how we have become enchanted with Science and thereby losing our human dignity in the process. We have placed Science on too high a pedestal.

No arguments there. But when you say, "We have placed Science on too high a pedestal," are you saying that we are using the scientific method to determine matters of subjective morality? This has not been my experience, but I would be interested in hearing more about this.

In an attempt to clarify and extend my OP I have added several paragraphs. The original OP is in bold. Also I failed to note that my ideas and quotes come from "Beyong Alienation" by Ernest Becker.

The seventeenth century, the Age of Enlightenment, was a turn away from a ?'God dominated culture' to a ?'human dominated culture'. The Church had, for one thousand years, been the force that turned all eyes upon God and the hereafter. The Age of Enlightenment turned all eyes upon wo/man and existence as the center of concern.

Europe was becoming acquainted with cultures throughout the world and in so doing discovered that there are many cultures, there are many different ways that society can be organized. Anthropologists refer to this state of mind as "cultural relativity". This attitude led to the question, which is correct, were the ancients mere savages or where they Noble Savages? When one compares one culture with another in an attempt to discover which is better one needs a metric. What is a standard of good and bad for culture?

A debate lasted throughout the century as to what is the fundamental nature of humans. Were we at rock bottom a Noble Savage or were we merely savages and any kind of civilization is an improvement. Had wo/man risen from a low state by civilization or was wo/man by nature a noble creature? This was the argument of The Enlightenment, which separated that period from the Renaissance. "It was a quest for an answer to the problem of how exactly society causes human unhappiness."

Rousseau says: "For it is by no means a light undertaking to distinguish properly between what is original and what is artificial in the actual nature of man, or to form a true idea of a state which no longer exists, perhaps never did exist, and probably never will exist; and of which it is, nevertheless, necessary to have true ideas, in order to form a proper judgment of our present state."

Rousseau is telling us that we must comprehend human nature if we are to gain a critical perspective upon which we can "formulate an ideal". Social science would call this an ideal-typical one. "It is an imaginary projection against reality, a projection that guides man's striving, even if the ideal is never reached nor can be reached. Either man lives with ideals that guide his efforts, or he wallows uncritically in his everyday world."

The Age of Enlightenment, the eighteenth century, began with a belief; the belief "that nature was kind and good". After the Lisbon earthquake and resulting fire there precipitated a reexamination. While others succumbed to despair Rousseau optimistically proposed an ideal; Liberty had to be the goal of all institutions. It was to be a well-defined ideal, "a model of man". Morality must be a human design forming "a secular map for human moral action".

Rousseau was offering "the Science of Society something great, unprecedented?-just what it needed: an ideal type of man…it was holistic, spiritual, nonreductive, descriptive, phenomenal…to describe man taken as a total thinking, feeling, free agent." Rousseau showed that morality could be designed by woman and man in accordance to an ideal created by them. Rousseau determined that the "science of man" could have meaning only as "an active ideal-type science".

Newtonian science left little room of such an idealistic model. It propounded a science of Science; the scientific method made man into a cipher, which served best when served lest. Rousseau pushed back; make humanity first and science second. When humanity is placed first "Existence is the thing?-Man?-the mass of men?-Humanity; human music not the music of the spheres, that's what interests man, the man of flesh and blood."

The scientific method has made man into a cipher. Women and men served best when they were hidden, unobserved behind the tubes and belts. Newton's method demanded an observer who was inconspicuous and replaceable by a machine whenever possible. The laws governing the movement of the spheres where number one; humanity was the machine's servant.

Science accomplished its assigned task when women and men remained value neutral. An experiment was ruined if a human emotion or idea outside the scientific facts required was intentionally or unintentional inserted.

Newtonian science was a mathematical, quantified pattern capable of reducing reality to an atomic level. It's ideal, if there was one, was man as a machine or more likely a cog in a machine. In such a science we lose the individual man and woman. Rousseau was offering something entirely different. It was holistic and non-reducible. It was a gestalt that included man as neutral manipulator of scientific experiments but also as a subject with values who was a totally thinking, feeling, free agent.

"Rousseau showed that morality had to be instrumented, by man according to an ideal formulated by him; the science of man could only have meaning as an active ideal-type of science." Newtonian science left no room for such and ideal. It had no room for a holistic woman or man. The solution proposed by Rousseau was to make humanity first and science second; science was to be the servant of wo/man rather than wo/man as the servant of science.

The seventeenth century Enlightenment determined that knowledge should be controlled based upon the needs of humanity. The spirit of the age demanded a science of man that could run parallel with Newtonian science of objects. The judgment of this age was that mechanistic Science was morally unedifying. The Age of Enlightenment rediscovered the concept of alienation as it applied to women and men. Humanity became alienated from their nature by the Science of science. Subjects were deprived of their subjectivity in servitude to machines.

The Enlightenment gave us a science worthy of men and women, a subjective science, a science of human value and not a neutral science of machines. What are the greatest gifts for mankind, if not those that point the way to the maximization of liberation of human creative energies?

Science is just a fancy word for the study of truth. It is the realization of the innate curiosity of man. It is not "science vs humanity," because science is a part of humanity.

stuh

The main philosophical problems of modern society are intimately associated with Dick and Jane's enchantment with Science. Normal science is, for too many, an enchanted idol that is perceived as the savior of humanity. No matter what dastardly things humans may do, Science will save us.

Science?-normal science?-as Thomas Kuhn labels it in "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" moves forward in a "successive transition from one paradigm to another". A paradigm defines the theory, rules and standards of practice. "In the absence of a paradigm or some candidate for paradigm, all of the facts that could possible pertain to the development of a given science are likely to seem equally relevant."

The Newtonian scientific paradigm was a mathematical, quantified, pattern capable of reducing reality to an atomic level. It's ideal, if there was one, was man as a machine or more likely a cog in a machine. In such a science we lose the individual man and woman. Rousseau was offering something entirely different. It was holistic and non-reducible. It was a gestalt that included man as neutral manipulator of scientific experiments but also as a subject with values who was a totally thinking, feeling, free agent.

It sounds like your point is that science exposes the unimportance of man in relation to the universe. Is that right?

Ok, is that a bad thing? It's just true. Would you prefer that we just remain blissfully ignorant of these things?

Stuh

My point is that most people expect far more from science than science can provide. Science has become an idol.

Well it doesn't attempt to provide a philosophy for how to live your life, that's for sure..

Coberst, I doubt if any real scientist ever believed that humanity was the servant of some mythical "machine," even when the belief in a clockwork universe was prevalent.

But it would not surprise me if people who were taught that mankind was created to be the servant of a mythical God would transfer that belief to Science. Some people will believe anything.

Science gives us a whole lot more insight into the reality of human nature than religion. Understanding how instincts, biological urges, and emotions evolved along with the mental capacity to override them gives us the opportunity to logically determine what values can and should be adopted instead of relying on ancient tribal notions of what God demands of us.

For example?

as a trained scientist all I can say is bunkum.

frankly, i don't think you know what you are talking about.

you miss the point, the economic harnessing of human logic, expressed culturally as "scientific method" is called technology. it is the latter which by human valuation that can diminish the human spirit. that is not "science," but purely an adaptive human attribute.

if you think that "science" enabled the nazis to kill six million jews with cyklon b then it was also "science" that let julius ceasar kill two million gauls two millinium before by building bridges across the rivers of western europe.

we are merely clever, tool using monkeys and if we worship a god it would be a good idea to bow down in adoration to the human thumb.

take this from a stroke victim, try not using one for even a single day and see what happens.

We see only what we are prepared to see. If we could comprehend our present circumstance we could create a far better society than we now have; a far better society that would be in tune with our present knowledge. The task is how to bring to light what is our present circumstance.

The nineteenth century enthroned a mechanistic science that dominated all venues of human existence. This was a mechanical and exceedingly efficient force that suppressed the human spirit while providing a substantial improvement in the basic animal needs of wo/man. Therein the paradox; we had developed a system that fed the belly and denied the spirit. This world was one of unabashed pursuit of private gain while birthing two major revolutions created by its disdain for the human need for dignity.

Is it possible to "have our cake and eat it too"? Ernest Becker proposes a well argued means whereby we can maintain a full stomach while nurturing a liberated human spirit.

Our technology has placed us in the corner regarding global warming and instead of adjusting our wastful habits many are convinced that technology will sove the problem. Technology will solve all the problems created by technology. Another example is longevity. Technology will solve our problems created by medical technology that has created ever longer life spans.

The environmental conundrum is an interesting and appropriate one. The degree to which global warming is a result of human activity at all is still being debated, but it is undeniable that human activity can harm the environment. And I certainly know people who do not seem concerned about this, at least not concerned enough to modify their consumption habits. But I wonder: are they ignoring their consumption habits because they're assuming "technology" will clean up after them, as you are suggesting, or are they ignoring their consumption habits simply because they're not thinking about the environment at all? I don't doubt that there are people out there who have unrealistic expectations about what technology can accomplish, but it seems a little exaggerated to say that people are wasteful because they idolize science. I don't know that these conspiracy theories are entirely necessary in explaining consumption habits. It also doesn't seem all that difficult to "have it both ways," as you mentioned; it seems possible and reasonable to expect technological advances to help us fix environmental problems, without having to put complete and undying faith in technology.

Incidentally, this thread links up nicely with an essay I recently read, and which I posted here.

Technology doesn't solve problems.

People solve problems.

And then we refer to the way we solved it as technology...

Shapless

I viewed the article you refered to and it seems to be well tuned into Kuhn's ideas regarding paradigms.

Webster's Dictionary often has more than one definition for a word. I am using the word ?'science' to mean "a department of systematized knowledge as an object of study".

The sciences as Thomas Kuhn labels it in "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" move forward in a "successive transition from one paradigm to another". A paradigm defines the theory, rules and standards of practice. "In the absence of a paradigm or some candidate for paradigm, all of the facts that could possible pertain to the development of a given science are likely to seem equally relevant."

Practitioners of normal science are expert puzzle-solvers. "One of the things a scientific community acquires with a paradigm is a criterion for choosing problems that, while the paradigm is taken for granted, can be assumed to have solutions…One of the reasons why normal science seems to progress so rapidly is that its practitioners concentrate on problems that only their own lack of ingenuity should keep them from solving."

As I understand the matter, Thomas Kuhn is master of the science of paradigm. Everything I read indicates that most all qualified experts consider Kuhn is King of that particular domain.